"the cries of mallards" (beak music #27)

 

Jump to 18.55 for the amazing "Farewell to A Hill" by Alice Shields - "a piece made in mourning for the death of a loved one", whose components include "electronically manipulated harpsichords, the sounds of small bells, and the cries of mallards."

This YouTube upload above is the quadraphonic version of the album (in fact this may be the only version of the album as originally on vinyl). 

Which obviously is not going to come through on your or my computer / phone / tablet / whatever,  but nonetheless - pretty fuckin' cool.

As is Alice Shields

Alice Shields is still alive! And still active.

Look at her holding her own amongst all these besuited ancient blokes at Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center

Although there is another female composer in there - Pril Smiley? (also on the album)

More top tunes from Ms Shields

Having done some beak music on "Farewell To A Hill", she did some muzzle music with "Coyote, For Tape" (1981), which - you guessed it  - incorporates the sound of that loping near-lupine, which occasionally can be seen in this very neighborhood of ours here in eastern Los Angeles...

In 1966 she composed a piece called "Wildcat Songs" - not a tape piece, so no actual wildcats involved,  but using a text from a Native American shaman.

I dimly recall that someone we met in LA once had a story about a bobcat settling and sunning itself on the diving board of their swimming pool.

We know several people who've had bears rummaging through their garbage cans of a night.

Actually a good mate of mine, a Brit expat here,  just posted a picture of a bear sitting up in a tree - don't recall if it was his own back garden, or while out on a hike, but... let's just say, I for one would not have lingered  there brandishing my cellphone and snapping away.... 

"El's Aria", another early piece, incorporating tape alongside instruments, appears on this unlikely looking release on Opus One, a label not unlike CRI in terms of being a home for modern composers

Among Shields's later works, there are Apocalypse - An Electronic Opera and  Shenandoah - Three Electronic Works

As is too often the case, there is a lot more electronic and tape-based - or electronic/tape inclusive compositions - by Shields that never got released, especially the earlier work.  

Volti (Dance Piece No. 1), dance piece, tape (1966)

Walking on the Surface of the Sun, tape (1966)

Domino, dance piece, tape (1967)

My Feathers are Growing Longer, dance pieces, tape (1967) [for Loizeaux-Murphy Dance Company]

Dance Piece No. 2, dance piece, tape (1968) [for Mimi Garrard Dance Theatre]

Study for Voice and Tape (1968) [electronic music with Shields’ prerecorded voice on tape, on poem by Shields]

Dance Piece No. 3, dance piece, tape (1969) [for Mimi Garrard Dance Theatre]

The Transformation of Ani, tape (1970)

Farewell to a Hill, tape (1975) [using bells, ducks, and electronic sounds]

Bicycle Music, film score, tape (1977) [for film on sculptor Helene Brandt, using the sounds of Brandt's bicycle sculptures]

Coyote, tape (1980) [using wolf-calls, coyotes, and manipulated human voices; from the opera "Shaman"]

El’s Aria, soprano, flute and tape (1983)

The Black Lake, tenor, cello and tape (1984) [text: Edward Barrett]

Rhapsody (an homage to Brahms), piano and tape (1984)

Voices, computer music (1989) [created on SUN computer]

Icarus and 4-H Club: Two Radio Plays by Sam Shepard, incidental music, [tape?] (1966)

The Witches’ Scenes from "Macbeth", incidental music, tape (1967)

We, incidental music for radio play, tape (1970) [with Vladimir Ussachevsky]

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Mallards - well they crop up in electronic music more often than you'd think!

Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co.

and the depraved scientist character Mallard in Blectum from Blechdom's macabre imaginary saga (first track here is "Rock-A-Mallard")